


Letters From A Different Reality

by ProblemWithTrouble



Series: 00Q [24]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alec is just trying to help, Angst, Love Letters, M/M, Spectre who?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18664201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblemWithTrouble/pseuds/ProblemWithTrouble
Summary: The first letter appeared on Friday. It was addressed in blocky handwritten all caps to “The Quartermaster of MI6” much like most of the envelopes that came to him. It was also in a stack of other branch mail and there was nothing to warn Q of its contents.





	Letters From A Different Reality

The first letter appeared on Friday. It was addressed in blocky handwritten all caps to “The Quartermaster of MI6” much like most of the envelopes that came to him. It was also in a stack of other branch mail and there was nothing to warn Q of its contents. He sat in his office, taking a break from the virus he was codding to deal with the mail. He opened it, saw the handwritten prose, and set it aside to be read after sorting through the rest all of which were invoices that he set in his outbox to send to accounting. He adjusted his glasses and picked up the handwritten letter. 

_Q –_

_No one tells you enough, least of all me but you are lovely. Smarter than any of us had dared hope but with an understanding for your agents. A trust in us that means more than you probably understand._

_Thank you_

It wasn’t signed though it was obviously from one of his agents. Something in the handwriting reminded him of Bond but he had been on a mission with radio silence for three days in Bolivia. It also wasn’t an exact match when he compared it to some of Bond’s few handwritten mission reports. 

Q decided to leave the mystery alone and respect the wishes of whichever of his agents had decided to say thank you for once. 

That became distinctly more difficult when the second letter appeared on his desk on Monday in the same manner of the first, hidden amongst the branch mail. 

_Q –_

_I know you care more about your mind than you do about your physical appearance. As brilliant as your mind, is the light in your eye when you tell a joke never fails to make everything feel just a little better. Same for your smile. Sometimes I think about that smile for hours. It settles me before a mission._

Just as before the author didn’t sign the letter but this time Q didn’t think he could let it go the same way he had. 

He tucked the letter into the protected pouch in his messenger bag, kept the envelope out and pulled up the security footage of his branch. He needed to work this out with his agent before it got any more out of hand. Agents needed to respect him, not become emotionally compromised. 

Jonah had brought in the mail that day and doled it out to all the desks. He was technically Q’s assistant but Q had mostly delegated him to keeping track of Q’s emails and answering the ones he could. He was also had an almost photographic memory and if something was off he remember even the smallest detail. 

“Jonah,” Q called and he turned around in the chair that was outside Q’s office with the other assistants. Q waved him in. “Was this in the mail or did someone hand it to you?”

Jonah shrugged. “Just Lacey. With the rest of the mail. Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“Do we need to scan it? Alex’s been wanting to try her new camera.”

“No. Everything’s fine.” Jonah shrugged again and backed out of the office and back to his desk. 

Q thought about tracing Lacey’s tracks through the building but then 009’s mission went to shit and Q as too busy to think about secret admirers. 

It went like that for three more days. He’d get a letter, read a few lines then get pulled away before he could do anymore searching into who was sending them. One day was planned for him to hack into a system once Bond had blocked in the virus that would allow Q remote access. The next day Eve came down and dragged him to an accounting meeting where Q spent three hours defending his budget. In the end they agreed that 00s cars had to be approved by M. Q didn’t have the heart to tell him that they already were. That the 00s took them anyway. The day after that 006 came in and paced around the R&D department until Q had to kick him out. 

There was no letter on Friday and Q took advantage of his lunch break. He sat with a bowl of pasta that was going cold with his tea as he searched through the footage of Lacey making her way through the building. The problem was that Q-Branch was one of the first stops since it was next to the mailroom. Instead Q scrolled through hours of mailroom footage. Right until he saw the blonde hair of Alec and almost audibly groaned. 

He ran the facial tagging system with the footage from all the other days and found that Alec had broken into the mailroom every night before Q received a letter. They were also sending Alec out on a mission that night. 

There was a small scuff of shoes at his door and when he looked up Bond was standing in the doorway. 

“Ah, 007, do you actually have any of your equipment to return?” Q asked standing from his desk. He decided that moving the letters would only entice Bond to search for them later, so he left them out, though he did clear his screen. 

Bond unholstered his gun and handed it over with two flash drives in his other hand. “They were nice enough to leave them on the desk for me,” Bond said with his trademark smirk that let Q know he thought he was just the funniest man alive. 

“You always bring me such nice presents.”

“You deserve it.” He started his slow prowl around the office, looking for god knew what. At least they weren’t in R&D again. Q let him wander as he put Bond’s gun away and logged it back in. 

“Any problems with any of the equipment?” 

“The lights went out.” 

“Don’t throw it at a wall if you want the lights to work.”

“I needed to hit the light switch.” 

“At least you brought it back,” Q grumbled more to himself than Bond. 

Bond didn’t say anything, and Q heard the faint rustle of paper. He turned around to see Bond reading the letters. Maybe they should have returned the equipment in R&D. 

Q liked to think he knew all of his agents well; but he could read few of them as well as James Bond. His breathing had become almost silent and his slightly tense body had gone suspiciously loose with his false relaxation. He was back to 007. 

“I’m dealing with it,” Q said before Bond could do anything stupid, he had probably recognized Alec’s handwriting. 

“You are? Doesn’t look dealt with.”

“It is. I know who it is and I’m taking care of it.”

“You know who it is?”

“I’m the quartermaster of MI6, I think I can figure out which one of you is sneaking love letters in the office mail.”

Bond was quiet and looked back down at the letters. He had formed an oddly protective streak ever since he had come back from Miss Swan’s company. He grabbed them off the desk slowly, it wouldn’t matter if he tried to remove them quickly, so he thought it was better not to startle the agent. 

“I’ll talk to him.” Bond’s voice was gruffer than it had been, and Q rolled his eyes. 

“You will do no such thing.”

Bond was quiet again and there was something a little distressing about watching the wheels turn in his head when the focus was on Alec and not an enemy. “Do you like them?”

“Bond,” Q warned. 

“It’s just a question.” Bond was starting to actually relax into his usual role of Bond-must-bother-Q.

“Then you won’t mind it being unanswered.”

“If my quartermaster is about to start dating a fellow agent, I think I should know about it.”

“It’s a matter of misplaced gratitude for my work. Nothing more. He has no more genuine interest in me than you do. Now out of my office and leave him alone,” Q said in the same severe tone he used when he was giving directions on a mission.

“Sure thing, Q,” Bond said with a smirk and finally left the branch.

* * *

Two hours later Alec walked into Q-Branch with his usual good humor and light step. He made a beeline for Q at the front workstation. 

“Good evening, 006. Just a moment.”

“Okay,” Alec said as cool as ever. 

“Could you write this down for me. There should be a pen somewhere. L. B. 6. 12. Q. I. 0. J. G. N.” Q finished and Alec handed over the sticky note that he had written on over to Q. Not one of the letters matched any that had been on the letters. In fact, the handwriting was barely legible. 

“Now you know why I type all my mission reports,” Alec said. 

“I most certainly do.”

“What was that?”

“Shipping tracking,” Q lied. 

“Odd tracking number.”

“Not really.”

“You know if you wanted to give me a writing test you just have to ask.” 

“I could but all you agents run away from the word test unless the word explosive is in front of it.” Q reached down and pulled out Alec’s actual mission kit.

“True but handwriting I can always pass. There are only so many left handed dyslexics who learned Russian before English.” Alec laughed and took his gun, tracker, and a replica of the target’s phone. 

“Why were you delivering letters you didn’t write?” Q asked. The handwriting on the envelope should have been a hint that the author and the addresser were different. A team of double-0s working together to deliver handwritten love letters had just seemed too absurd. He really should have known better. 

“It was only supposed to be the first one, but I know James and I knew there had to be more in his flat so after he left I went back.” He pulled one more envelope out of his breast pocket. “Got busy last night and couldn’t sneak it in.” 

Q took it but was careful to keep any emotion off of his face. 

“I expect a wedding invitation when I get back. Engraved.” 

“I sincerely doubt that will be the turn events take.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Anything else, Quartermaster?”

“Your ticket,” Q said, pulling out a manila envelope. “Passport. All the usual.”

“I’ll bring you a wedding present from Venezuela.” 

“Please don’t.” Q watched Alec leave the branch as he tried to get his thoughts in a coherent order. 

Everything would have been much simpler if it had been Alec. But Q had had bad luck his whole life and it had to be the only agent in the world that Q actually had a thing for. Q took a look at the clock and decided that in an hour he’d leave and find Bond.

His whole tube ride to Bond’s he thought about what it was that he was going to tell Bond. He opened the last letter that Alec had handed him. 

_Q-_

_I think I love you. That’s what Eve says anyway. I don’t think I know how to stop._

For all his planning of the conversation he was not prepared for the sight of a barefoot and glaring Bond in flannel pajamas and no shirt. The whole flat behind him was dark and Q realized that Bond had probably been trying to fix his messed up sleeping patterns. 

“Q.”

“Bond. James. Can I come in?”

Bond looked him up and down slowly then stepped back in silent invitation. Q hurried in. Bond hit the light and Q was greeted by the same impersonal furniture that Q had seen when he had first moved into his designated Quartermaster flat. It had taken Q an afternoon of unpacking to cover every surface with his own things to feel a little less like a hotel. Bond had apparently never gotten around to it. “Figure it out?”

“Yes. Alec was very helpful.”

“He likes to think so.”

Q forced himself to take a slow breath. Give him a mission critical escape that held the fate of the world as everyone knew it and Q was calm, cool, and collected. Throw a single emotion at him and he was a goner. “You can’t feel that way about me.” 

“Really? Have a plan to make me stop because I’d love to hear it.”

“It’s exactly what I told you it was earlier. It’s misplaced gratitude for my work.”

“Q,” Bond said with his head shaking. “I think I can tell the difference between gratitude and what I feel for you.” 

“And what do you think that is?” 

“Attraction. Affection. Desire. I want you and you can’t change that. I’ve tried to change it myself a few times.”

“James…”

“Would it kill us if we went on a date?” 

Q sighed. “It might. If it distracts either of us it could cost a lot more than one of our lives. It could cost dozens or hundreds.”

Bond nodded slowly and closed his eyes. “You weren’t even supposed to see those letters that were on your desk. It was just supposed to be letter saying you’re good at your job. I knew you’d say the smart thing.”

“I got that one too. And this one.” Q handed over the one Alec had given him last. The one that said love. 

Bond took it and read it with a sigh. “Where’s he on assignment?”

“You know I can’t tell you that. You’ll have to wait until he’s back.” Q tried to smile but he was sure that it still looked sad. “I should go.”

“You should.” 

Q nodded and went to the door but was stopped when his hand was on the knob and Bond spoke. 

“I really wasn’t trying anything.”

“I know. If things were different I’d be happier than you can know. But I’m your quartermaster and we need to keep it professional.”

“Goodnight, Q.”

“Goodnight, James.”

**Author's Note:**

> kudos + comments = love 
> 
> This was supposed to be a cute valentines day love letter fic and now I'm just sad in May.


End file.
